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Winnipeg Free Press
21 hours ago
- Business
- Winnipeg Free Press
Kinew hires dual citizen who spent decade as reporter in Washington as province's U.S. trade representative
Premier Wab Kinew has hired a former Washington, D.C. news correspondent as Manitoba's trade representative to the United States. Richard Madan is taking on a new role in the U.S. capital after reporting on Washington politics for nearly a decade, first for CTV and then CBC. The American-born, Alberta-raised journalist arrived in Winnipeg Monday and officially begins his job Tuesday with the title of Manitoba senior representative to the U.S. JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Richard Madan, a long-time news correspondent in Washington, will be Manitoba's trade representative to the United States. 'This is the most exciting opportunity I've ever had,' Madan said in an interview late Monday. 'This is an opportunity of a lifetime just to represent a province that I love and where my career started and really try to advocate for it in the United States.' Madan said he's here this week to meet with the provincial government and business, labour and Indigenous leaders. Although he was happy with his reporting job, the trade rep position felt like a chance to use his skills, background and experience to do 'the right thing.' 'I'm an American. I'm also Canadian, and this sounds corny, but you just kind of want to help,' he said. Kinew — who was a TV journalist before he was a politician — announced in December that the province would hire a U.S. trade envoy early in the new year to represent Manitoba's interests. Madan was covering the premiers' visit to Washington during the winter and heard that Manitoba was looking to hire a trade representative to work in the U.S. capital alongside other provinces, including Alberta, Ontario and Quebec. 'I'm an American. I'm also Canadian, and this sounds corny, but you just kind of want to help.'–Richard Madan 'I said, 'I'm glad you guys are doing it because this should have been done decades ago. Let me know how I can help',' he said. 'I just left it at that. Then, a few months later, I received a call asking if I would be interested.' He said he thought long and hard about it. 'I feel I'm made for this,' said Madan, who is married, in his early 50s and holds dual citizenship. 'I was born in Athens, Georgia, lived a lot of my life in Canada, and I thought, you know, we're at this very critical, important time…. I understand this country. I know how to talk to these guys. I know how to connect with them. I think that that's really needed right now.' Madan said he contacted Canada's Ambassador to the U.S. Kirsten Hillman earlier in the day to let her know he was taking the position. He didn't know Monday if he was going to have an office in the Canadian Embassy. Some business leaders said they were surprised that a former journalist got the job. 'I think it's an interesting choice,' said Manitoba Chambers of Commerce president and CEO Chuck Davidson. 'It's typically been someone that may have been a former MP or an elected official or someone from the business community.' 'I understand this country. I know how to talk to these guys. I know how to connect with them. I think that that's really needed right now.'–Richard Madan Davidson said Madan's connection to Winnipeg and Manitoba, combined with his journalism background, should serve him well in the position. Madan worked as a CBC TV reporter in Winnipeg from 2000 to 2004, reported on politics for CityTV in Toronto from 2004 to 2010, worked for CTV as a parliamentary correspondent in Ottawa from 2010 until 2016, when he moved to its bureau in Washington D.C. In 2023, Madan was let go by CTV as part of major layoffs at the network. Later that year, CBC hired him as one of its Washington correspondents. Madan was in Washington when U.S. President Donald Trump was elected to his first term in 2016. Kinew announced the plan to hire a Manitoba trade rep under the looming threat of U.S. tariffs last December, several weeks before Trump's second inauguration. 'It's obviously going to be a new role for him, someone coming from the media going into a role like this — sort of an advocacy position. It'll be interesting. I'm sure that Richard will get the support of the business community and government to move forward and be successful in this role, hopefully,' Davidson said. Bram Strain, president and CEO of the Business Council of Manitoba, said he was surprised initially by Madan's selection, but it made sense when he thought about it. Tuesdays A weekly look at politics close to home and around the world. 'Obviously, being a reporter, he knows lots of people. He knows how (Washington) works, he knows how that government works,' Strain said. 'What you're accessing is the network — as opposed to someone who knows business first, but doesn't know the way the town works. That's very important.' Strain heads the business council made up of more than 100 leading business presidents and CEOs who've committed to Manitoba's economic growth and community development. He said the trade envoy needs to listen to businesses to learn what the province needs and then represent it. Carol SandersLegislature reporter Carol Sanders is a reporter at the Free Press legislature bureau. The former general assignment reporter and copy editor joined the paper in 1997. Read more about Carol. Every piece of reporting Carol produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. 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Yahoo
27-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The quiet threat to Canadian unity isn't Quebec — it's Alberta
EDMONTON, Alberta — Mark Carney, the Alberta-raised prime minister hoping to secure a fourth term in power for Canada's Liberal Party, makes for an ironic target of the province's burbling independence movement. Carney is en route to Edmonton on the campaign's final day, sensing opportunity in the oil-rich province where the name Trudeau — invoking both Justin and his father, Pierre — has been a dirty word for decades. Albertans often feel forgotten, ignored or dismissed by politicians who live and work to the east. If Canada elects Carney on Monday, many in the province will feel unsettled. For the past decade, they've felt that Liberals in Ottawa have ignored Alberta's massive contribution to Canada's economic growth and worked against the oil and gas sector that has fueled so much of it. One of their elder statesmen, Preston Manning, recently sounded the alarm about dire consequences of another Liberal win. Manning, the 82-year-old godfather of a prairie populist movement that took Ottawa by storm 30 years ago, penned a high-profile op-ed in The Globe and Mail with a provocative warning: A Carney victory would fuel a separatist movement in the province frequently at odds with Ottawa. A vote for Carney's Liberals, Manning wrote, is 'a vote for the breakup of Canada as we know it.' The column reignited questions in Calgary, Edmonton and the nation's capital thousands of miles to the east about just how deep the sentiment runs. Jason Kenney, a former Alberta premier who took Trudeau's government to court over a federal carbon tax and pipeline regulation law, rejected Manning's veiled threat. "Threatening to leave the country because you don't get your desired electoral outcome is counterproductive and unpatriotic. And I don't think it's something that should be thrown around," Kenney told reporters at an April conference of grassroots Conservatives. "Nor should central Canadian political elites be dismissive of the very legitimate grievances that people in the West and Alberta have about the attacks on our energy industry." Kenney's successor in the premier's office, Danielle Smith, has laid down nine asks of whichever party wins the election — most focused on unleashing the oil and gas sector. "I provided a specific list of demands the next prime minister, regardless of who that is, must address within the first six months of their term to avoid an unprecedented national unity crisis," she said in March following a meeting with Carney in Edmonton. The Angus Reid Institute recently measured sizeable — but hardly overwhelming — support for Alberta's departure from Canada. Twenty-five percent said they'd vote to leave no matter the result of Canada's election. That data point ticked up to 30 percent in the case of a Liberal victory. Angus Reid's polling bears out the vibe of western alienation. In 2016, 45 percent of Albertans said they felt respected by the rest of the country. This year, only 24 percent feel the same way. Jared Wesley says the solid core of separatists in Alberta is likely far smaller. Wesley, a professor at the University of Alberta and widely cited expert on evolving Prairie identities, says his research suggests only about one in 10 people in the province would actually vote to leave Canada — and most of them don't think Alberta is likely to strike out on its own. "They're venting frustration. It's a protest vote. It's not really got a lot of meat behind it. So it's not a grassroots movement, especially this most recent push," Wesley says. "It's absolutely an elite movement driven by folks that have an interest in ginning up separatist support." Their goal, Wesley says, could be simply to gain leverage with Ottawa to extract favorable treatment — particularly in the oil and gas industry. Sen. Paula Simons, a former longtime journalist in Alberta who now sits with the Independent Senators Group, says she's heard this song before. "This is not a new phenomenon in this province, and it's a bit like mosquitoes that go dormant in dry summers, then they come out again when it rains," Simons told POLITICO. "This is a prairie cyclical problem, and it happens when people in Alberta are feeling aggrieved." The alienation isn't made up, Simons said, pointing to the underrepresentation of Westerners in the Senate. The four westernmost provinces combine for 24 senators. Ontario and Quebec are apportioned 24 apiece, and the three Maritime provinces — with far fewer residents than the West — split another 24. "The amount to which the Canadian paradigm favors the center is not imaginary," Simons said. Both Carney and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre grew up in Alberta — the former in Edmonton, the latter in Calgary. Carney left for university — first Harvard, then Oxford — and never again lived in the province. Still, he launched his Liberal Party leadership bid there earlier this year, part of an effort to showcase his prairie roots to a country just getting to know him. After Carney called an election for April 28, he stopped in Alberta, where the party hopes to flip a handful of Conservative seats. Amarjeet Sohi, Edmonton's mayor on leave, hopes to win one of those electoral districts. Sohi, a former Liberal MP and Cabinet minister who won a seat in 2015, is familiar with the wrath of Alberta voters. They sent him packing after a single term. He acknowledges some Liberal voices in the nation's capital took on a "sanctimonious tone" during Trudeau's first four years in office. Albertans aired "legitimate concerns" about their place in the pecking order. "There is a sense of alienation, not because they don't love Canada," Sohi told POLITICO as he knocked doors in a suburban poll. "There's a sense of lack of respect. Sometimes their contributions are not fully understood or appreciated. "I rarely run into people who think or believe they need to separate," he said, mentioning only a single voter ever advocating for "Alberta 51" to his face — a reference to the province jumping ship for statehood. Simons, the senator, will be watching the Prairie side of the electoral map closely when results start pouring in on Monday. "The worst-case scenario for Western alienation is a Carney victory with no seats in the West," she said. For most Canadians, U.S. President Donald Trump's repeated annexation overtures have buoyed their sense of patriotism. But it's not one-size-fits-all across Canada. Kenney, the former Alberta premier, put it bluntly: "Sadly, in Canada, we can never take national unity for granted."
Politico
27-04-2025
- Politics
- Politico
The quiet threat to Canadian unity isn't Quebec — it's Alberta
EDMONTON, Alberta — Mark Carney, the Alberta-raised prime minister hoping to secure a fourth term in power for Canada's Liberal Party, makes for an ironic target of the province's burbling independence movement. Carney is en route to Edmonton on the campaign's final day, sensing opportunity in the oil-rich province where the name Trudeau — invoking both Justin and his father, Pierre — has been a dirty word for decades. Albertans often feel forgotten, ignored or dismissed by politicians who live and work to the east. If Canada elects Carney on Monday, many in the province will feel unsettled. For the past decade, they've felt that Liberals in Ottawa have ignored Alberta's massive contribution to Canada's economic growth and worked against the oil and gas sector that has fueled so much of it. One of their elder statesmen, Preston Manning, recently sounded the alarm about dire consequences of another Liberal win. Manning, the 82-year-old godfather of a prairie populist movement that took Ottawa by storm 30 years ago, penned a high-profile op-ed in The Globe and Mail with a provocative warning: A Carney victory would fuel a separatist movement in the province frequently at odds with Ottawa. A vote for Carney's Liberals, Manning wrote, is 'a vote for the breakup of Canada as we know it.' The column reignited questions in Calgary, Edmonton and the nation's capital thousands of miles to the east about just how deep the sentiment runs. Jason Kenney, a former Alberta premier who took Trudeau's government to court over a federal carbon tax and pipeline regulation law, rejected Manning's veiled threat. 'Threatening to leave the country because you don't get your desired electoral outcome is counterproductive and unpatriotic. And I don't think it's something that should be thrown around,' Kenney told reporters at an April conference of grassroots Conservatives. 'Nor should central Canadian political elites be dismissive of the very legitimate grievances that people in the West and Alberta have about the attacks on our energy industry.' Kenney's successor in the premier's office, Danielle Smith, has laid down nine asks of whichever party wins the election — most focused on unleashing the oil and gas sector. 'I provided a specific list of demands the next prime minister, regardless of who that is, must address within the first six months of their term to avoid an unprecedented national unity crisis,' she said in March following a meeting with Carney in Edmonton . The Angus Reid Institute recently measured sizeable — but hardly overwhelming — support for Alberta's departure from Canada. Twenty-five percent said they'd vote to leave no matter the result of Canada's election. That data point ticked up to 30 percent in the case of a Liberal victory. Angus Reid's polling bears out the vibe of western alienation. In 2016, 45 percent of Albertans said they felt respected by the rest of the country. This year, only 24 percent feel the same way. Jared Wesley says the solid core of separatists in Alberta is likely far smaller. Wesley, a professor at the University of Alberta and widely cited expert on evolving Prairie identities, says his research suggests only about one in 10 people in the province would actually vote to leave Canada — and most of them don't think Alberta is likely to strike out on its own . 'They're venting frustration. It's a protest vote. It's not really got a lot of meat behind it. So it's not a grassroots movement, especially this most recent push,' Wesley says. 'It's absolutely an elite movement driven by folks that have an interest in ginning up separatist support.' Their goal, Wesley says, could be simply to gain leverage with Ottawa to extract favorable treatment — particularly in the oil and gas industry. Sen. Paula Simons, a former longtime journalist in Alberta who now sits with the Independent Senators Group, says she's heard this song before. 'This is not a new phenomenon in this province, and it's a bit like mosquitoes that go dormant in dry summers, then they come out again when it rains,' Simons told POLITICO. 'This is a prairie cyclical problem, and it happens when people in Alberta are feeling aggrieved.' The alienation isn't made up, Simons said, pointing to the underrepresentation of Westerners in the Senate. The four westernmost provinces combine for 24 senators. Ontario and Quebec are apportioned 24 apiece, and the three Maritime provinces — with far fewer residents than the West — split another 24. 'The amount to which the Canadian paradigm favors the center is not imaginary,' Simons said. Both Carney and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre grew up in Alberta — the former in Edmonton, the latter in Calgary. Carney left for university — first Harvard, then Oxford — and never again lived in the province. Still, he launched his Liberal Party leadership bid there earlier this year, part of an effort to showcase his prairie roots to a country just getting to know him. After Carney called an election for April 28, he stopped in Alberta, where the party hopes to flip a handful of Conservative seats. Amarjeet Sohi, Edmonton's mayor on leave, hopes to win one of those electoral districts. Sohi, a former Liberal MP and Cabinet minister who won a seat in 2015, is familiar with the wrath of Alberta voters. They sent him packing after a single term. He acknowledges some Liberal voices in the nation's capital took on a 'sanctimonious tone' during Trudeau's first four years in office. Albertans aired 'legitimate concerns' about their place in the pecking order. 'There is a sense of alienation, not because they don't love Canada,' Sohi told POLITICO as he knocked doors in a suburban poll. 'There's a sense of lack of respect. Sometimes their contributions are not fully understood or appreciated. 'I rarely run into people who think or believe they need to separate,' he said, mentioning only a single voter ever advocating for 'Alberta 51" to his face — a reference to the province jumping ship for statehood. Simons, the senator, will be watching the Prairie side of the electoral map closely when results start pouring in on Monday. 'The worst-case scenario for Western alienation is a Carney victory with no seats in the West,' she said. For most Canadians, U.S. President Donald Trump's repeated annexation overtures have buoyed their sense of patriotism. But it's not one-size-fits-all across Canada. Kenney, the former Alberta premier, put it bluntly: 'Sadly, in Canada, we can never take national unity for granted.'
